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Italy After the Vote: What Now?

The Italian voters have spoken—but what on earth did they say?
Two clear winners were anointed yesterday. First, Beppe Grillo, whose M5S placed first at 25% with the slogan “send them home,” retire all the old guard politicians and replace them with citizen-legislators. And second, Silvio Berlusconi, the …

The Italian voters have spoken—but what on earth did they say?

Two clear winners were anointed yesterday. First, Beppe Grillo, whose M5S placed first at 25% with the slogan “send them home,” retire all the old guard politicians and replace them with citizen-legislators. And second, Silvio Berlusconi, the oldest of the old guard, the embodiment of everything Grillo and his followers railed against. So having yoked together this improbable pair, can the Italian voters honestly expect the state to move forward in any direction whatsoever?

Well, the drover charged with that task for the moment is the technical ‘winner,’ Pier Luigi Bersani, whose center-left alliance won a razor-thin plurality and will thus, under Italy’s bizarre election system, have a working majority in the Camera and the chance to form a government. But with nothing close to a workable majority in the Senate—even with Monti’s handful of centrist senators Bersani comes up 20 votes short—how long will that government last?

Several implausible scenarios remain technically possible.

Berlusconi has already called for the ‘grand coalition’ (with Bersani and Monti) which would create a numerical majority. Neither Bersani nor Monti seems likely to disgrace himself with such a deal, but people (like me) who consider Berlusconi politically dead are repeatedly surprised when the zombie walks.

Alternatively, the PD could call for new elections. This was the first reaction of the Democratic Party’s deputy secretary Enrico Letta yesterday, but he was quickly walked back. In time there may be no other choice, but Italy seems likely to pay a steep price in borrowing costs–and angst–if it has to launch new elections.

Most intriguingly, a working relationship could develop between Bersani’s center-left and the Grillini in both houses to produce some of the reforms Italy so desperately needs. This was the immediate response yesterday of Bersani’s leftist partner, Nichi Vendola, who pointed to a long list of progressive proposals roughly shared by the two groups. Grillo himself this morning declared himself open to case-by-case consideration of reform bills emanating from Bersani’s putative government.

Could such a governing alliance between an old-school political party and this self-described ‘tsunami’ of anti-political populism actually function? The odds are against it, but the very possibility points to some fascinating ambiguities in Grillo’s movement…